We didn’t even really say anything to each other, but smiled because we were rebelling—out in the great big world on our own—and we couldn’t believe how easy it was, how you could hop on your bike, pedal, and disappear from under your parents’ thumbs, from everything you knew, and how there was so much out there for us to explore.

That day buzzed with possibility.

We both felt it, and so there was no need to put it into words.

Everything was simply understood.

What happened to us?

What happened to those two kids who simply loved to ride bikes for hours and hours?

The mouth of my P-38 is almost touching the glass now.

Primary target doesn’t sense I’m just outside his window.

Primary target is approximately five feet away.

If your grandfather could execute an evil man, so can you, I think.

The computer screen casts an eerie glow over the target’s bedroom.

As I hover above my body, I try to move my index finger so that it will trip the trigger

and the P-38 will dischar ge and the glass will shatter and the target’s head will explod e like a pumpk in.

But that doesn’t happen for some reason.

The target clicks off his computer and the room goes dark.

It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but when they do I see that Asher has his dick in his hand and he’s jerking off in his chair, only he’s turned sideways so that his pumping fist won’t bang the underbelly of his desk. He’s even thrown back his head.

But, amazingly, even with Asher jerking off five feet away, I just can’t stop thinking about that day we went for that long-ass bike ride and wishing we could erase everything that happened since and live in the space of that one single day.

I remember turning around at the designated time so we wouldn’t be late for dinner, so we wouldn’t arouse our parents’ suspicions.

We were in front of a car dealership and there were all of these red, white, and blue balloons left over from the Fourth of July. We put our feet on the concrete, straddled our bikes, and surveyed the new land we’d discovered.

It was like we were little Christopher Columbuses or Ponce de Leóns.

Like we had left safe land and survived unknown waters.

BMX bikes were our ships.

Asher said, “We made it pretty far.”

I nodded and smiled.

“We can do this every day this summer. Go in so many different directions! Like the spokes of our bike wheels!”

I remember the look on his face was genuine pure excitement—like we had just discovered we had wings and could fly.

His eyes radiated like the summer sun above us.

But we never did go on another bike ride like that ever again, and I’ll never understand why.

Our parents didn’t catch us.

We didn’t get into any trouble at all.

The trip was a complete success.

We just never got around to taking another daylong ride, maybe because of what Asher’s uncle started, and that seems so so fucking sad right now, such a missed opportunity, that my eyes get all watery and my vision blurs.

My P-38 is still pointed at the primary target, but I’m starting to realize that I’m not going to complete this mission. I’m a terrible soldier.

My grandfather would probably call me a faggot and slap the shit out of me, like he used to do to my father, or so my mother told me at my grandfather’s funeral, when I was in the third grade.

My heart’s just not into it, but I’m not really sure why.

Probably because I’m a fuckup who can’t do anything right.

My essence gets sucked back into my body and then I’m clicking the P-38 safety back on.

I stuff the gun into my front pocket, pull out my cell phone, and hit the power button.

As soon as it loads up I tap the camera icon, make sure the flash is on, point it at Asher’s bedroom window, discharge an explosion of white light so he will know someone has taken a picture of him jerking off, and then run like hell through the woods.

TWENTY-NINE

As I snake through so many leafless trees, kicking through mounds of dead foliage and fallen branches, I keep tripping and worrying about the P-38 accidentally firing a bullet into my thigh—but I keep laughing too.

I picture Asher jumping up when he saw the flash and then scurrying to the window and seeing someone running for the woods.

I wonder if he knew it was me?

Of course, he knew it was me!

Who else would it be?

Although he probably has many enemies and maybe even has a new secret boy, now that I’m out of the picture.

Still, whether he knows it was me or not, he’s probably worried about that photo showing up on Facebook or being posted all over the hallways of our school—and even though I would never do either of those things,66 it’s still kind of funny thinking about Asher’s jerk-off picture going public.

I mean, think of the meanest person you know.

Think of Hitler, even.

And then picture him jerking off alone in a room.

Suddenly, he doesn’t seem so evil and impressive anymore, does he?

He seems sort of hilarious and powerless and vulnerable and maybe even like someone you feel sorry for.

Back in junior high, our health teacher told us that everyone masturbates.

Everyone is a slave to sexual desire, I guess.

And so maybe everyone deserves our pity then too.

Maybe if we would just picture our enemies jerking off once in awhile, the world would be a better place.

I don’t know.

Somehow I end up by the river and decide to catch my breath under this little bridge where there are endless empty beer cans, shards of cheap alcohol bottles that were long ago thrown against the massive concrete wall, used condoms here and there, and all sorts of graffiti—gems like “Rich fucked Neda here 10-3-09” and “Super Cock Hero!” and “Tru Nigga 4 life,” even though there are no black people living in our town.

Kids in my high school drink beer under this bridge, and call it Troll City, although I’ve never been to any of those parties.

As I catch my breath, I think about Asher and laugh once more.

What he did to me doesn’t seem all that important anymore, because I’m about to blow my brains out, and so the memory of it will instantly disappear and be gone forever.

End of problem.

And I tell myself that he’s freaked out about the photo I took—that will have to be his punishment.

I’ve evened the score.

I can let go.

I can finally close my eyes and fall backward into the deep beyond.

I try to believe that anyway.

For some crazy reason, I remember this James Baldwin quote Herr Silverman had us debate in his Holocaust class when we were talking about the Jews who searched the globe hunting for escaped Nazis after WWII—men who had done evil, horrible things and then fled to Argentina or Namibia or wherever.

Here’s the quote:

People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.

A lot of kids in my class argued the validity of that quote, probably because they thought taking the high road was the right answer, what Herr Silverman wanted, the response that would score you the most points on the SAT.

I know Herr Silverman wasn’t saying the Nazis who fled should be forgiven and given a fresh start. He was trying to make us think about how life is hard and people suffer in all sorts of ways without our adding to their suffering to satisfy our sense of vengeance, but I sort of don’t think that the quote holds up in the real world where literature and schooling and philosophy and morality don’t exist, because Asher and Linda and so many other culpable people seem to be fine—functioning exceptionally well within the world even—while I’m under a disgusting bridge about to put a hole in my skull.

Maybe this is how the Jewish Nazi hunters felt back in the fifties—like they were still living in Troll City even after they had been liberated from the Nazi death camps.

Or maybe this is justice.

Maybe I’ve allowed myself to become this fucked-up, depressed, misunderstood person.

Maybe this is all my fault.

Maybe I should have killed Asher Beal.

I mean, I was so angry.

Asher definitely deserved to die.67

Or maybe I should have tried to save Asher back when all the bad shit began—before he turned full-on evil?

But I was just a kid.

We were just kids, and maybe we still are.

You can’t expect kids to save themselves, can you?

I’ve got the gun to my temple now and I’m rubbing the side of my head into the metal O.

It feels sort of nice—almost like a massage—as I push the P-38’s mouth harder and deeper into the soft spot of my skull.

It’s like the P-38 is an old skeleton key I’m trying to fit into an old padlock and when I make that connection I’ll hear a click and a door will open and I’ll walk through and be saved.

“Make that lock click, Leonard,” I whisper to myself. “You just have to squeeze your index finger and everything will be okay. The thoughts will stop. No more problems. You can finally just rest.”

I’m just about to pull the trigger when another random question pops into my head.

I wonder whether Linda ever remembered that it was my birthday.

For some reason it seems important right now and the more I wonder the more I realize I just can’t die without knowing the answer.

I lower the P-38 and check my phone for voice messages.

There are none.

I check my e-mail.

Nothing.

Nor are there any text messages.

I laugh—I mean I fucking howl, because it seems so fitting somehow.

What a birthday it’s been.

What a life.

I raise the P-38 and press the mouth into my temple once more.

I close my eyes.

I squeeze the trigger.

THIRTY

Time

comes

to

a

standstill.

THIRTY-ONE

The trigger resists and I wonder if it might be rusted or something, because no matter how hard I squeeze, the bullet doesn’t come out and I do not die.

So I transfer the gun into my left hand and try to straighten my trigger finger and find that I can’t—it’s sort of frozen in a cat’s curled-tail position that I cannot alter.

“FUCK!!!” I scream into the night, across the water, and then bang my fist against the concrete wall, trying to get my trigger finger to work, but no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to blow my brains out.

I wonder if my inability is some sort of subconscious attempt to save myself from suicide and then I remember that I promised to at least call Herr Silverman if I was about to end my life, so I figure I maybe have to make good on that promise before my subconscious will allow me to employ my trigger finger and finish the job.

A promise is a promise.

I find the piece of paper Herr Silverman gave me; it’s in my back pocket.

I use my cell phone as a flashlight so I can read the green numbers.

I punch in the numbers.

The phone rings.

I wonder if he will pick up and I’m sort of hoping for voice mail so that I can just leave a message—keeping my promise—and then finish what I’ve set in motion.

On the fourth ring I relax, thinking I’m about to get his voice mail, when I hear a click and then, “Hello?”